DivitoDesign - Webdesign Blog

Latest DivitoDesign News For 27 August ‘08

Stefan Vervoort — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:11:04 +0000

Here are some updates you and I will be dealing with in the next couple weeks and months. There are some personal matters as well as DivitoDesign news.

Personal
I told you in my 18th birthday post that I will be operated to my knee in the future. Well, the future is tomorrow 08:00 am, local time. Without internet (I think) in the next two days, I won’t be able to report until Friday late.

What is going to happen, you might ask. Six years ago, I have had an accident with my bike and my Antorior Cruciate Ligament snapped (together with some other things but that was fixed right away!) and because my body is grown now, it is possible to operate.

New writer
A couple days back a real life friend asked me how things are working out with DivitoDesign. I answered something like, “Great, yet hard work combined with school and work”. He offered me to write a couple articles about webdesign and inspiration to make my work less hard.

I agreed! I am looking to expand DivitoDesign with more different kind of articles as I am writing about coding and blogging only at the moment. The “Webdesign” aspect of this blog doesn’t get the attention it needs and I think with adding this guy to the one-man-show, we will be able to improve that part and write some quality articles.

His name is Robbert and he will introduce himself in the time I am gone. Don’t blame him for a typo here and there as that will only improve with time (he never blogged in his life).

Expansion
I have been thinking of a couple expansions for DivitoDesign lately. A new magazine-like DivitoDesign with Community News, Quality articles almost daily, Wordpress Themes monthly combined with Interviews and Inspiration posts. What do you think?

There are some questions I would like to ask you about a possible new layout. Would you be so kind to answer them for me through the contact page, or via the comments below? If you have a great suggestion DivitoDesign should have, let me know as well.

Questions
Do you think I should just keep this design? Or should I integrate the color scheme in a magazine-look? Do you want me to do an illustration for the header? Do you want more contrast?

66 Links To Learn The Webdesign Basics

Stefan Vervoort — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:11:54 +0000

In the past, DivitoDesign has learned you how to start blogging and many people have learned from that. So I thought, why not give beginners some articles that help you to start with webdesign in general.I remember the time I started out and it wasn’t easy, simply because I didn’t know where to begin. It’s time to change that. Here are some of the best articles and sites from around the internet that will learn you all the basics you need.

General

Programs

Adobe Photoshop CS3 (Design)
GIMP (Design)
Adobe DreamWeaver (HTML/CSS/PHP editing)
NVU (HTML/CSS editing)

HTML

CSS

Design

Site Structure

Tutorial Sites

Colors

Resources

Stock Images

Search Engines

Inspiration

Fonts / Typography

Usability and Accessibility

Blogging

Suggestions?

If you think a beginner would benefit from an article you have wrote or which you have found, feel free to leave a comment with the link, or send me an email!

For more articles on webdesign, blogging, CSS or Seach engine optimizing, consider subscribing to the RSS feed.

Get Great Subjects For Your Articles

Stefan Vervoort — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 20:19:02 +0000

A great subject is important for every article, of course you know that. If you find the right subject for your article and it is interesting for your audience as well, your article will most likely have success (of course, with promotion) and that success is usually the goal you are aiming for.

After I have wrote an article about the writer’s block everyone could face, I thought of the subject “problem” I had to deal with some time back.

In this article you will find a couple ways and places to find the inspiration for your new article subject.

1. Subscribe to Related RSS Feeds

You should always know what the “competition” is writing about. Their blog topics interests you (or you should choose a different niche!), but also to gain ideas for articles. I don’t mean just copying their subjects and write a slightly different article, but seeing related articles can be a good source of inspiration.

2. Social Media

Are you an active user of Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious or any other social media site around? Browse around your Diggs, Stumbles and saves and you will find articles related to what someone in your niche (in this case yourself, because you liked those articles) want to read. Reading and looking on their titles might inspire you to produce an idea with the quality anyone in your niche likes.

3. Browse Your Older Articles

Usually in the beginning of your blog you know some subjects you want to write about or else you wouldn’t have started a blog. When you browse those articles again after some time, you might find a subject that you wanted to write about before, but you just forgot about it. Or maybe you just want to extend an article you’ve wrote in the past because your knowledge has grown.

4. Ebooks or browser bookmarks

My Firefox bookmark map ‘Resources’ is packed full of information because I tend to bookmark everything I see. If you bookmark all articles that interests you (or don’t have time to read it in full), you will have a tons of interesting information you can read. The same goes with those hundreds of Ebooks you have lying around but never had time to read.

5. Google Alerts

Google Alerts (BETA) is a cool tool you can use to get the latest ‘related to a keyword’ articles in your mailbox once a day or once a week. Currently, I have three different keywords I use to gather all different articles about your niche. If you order all those emails in one map in your mail-software, you will have a bunch of information you usually shouldn’t be able to find or know about.

6. 37 Viral Ideas

Skellie Wag has written an article packed full with ideas you can use right away. These 37 ideas can be used in all different niches and therefore this source is very valuable for anyone. You will find ideas you have also thought of, but many new ones. I just found this post and I will definitely check it out when I run out of ideas! Visit the article.

9 Tips to Overcome a Writer’s Block

Stefan Vervoort — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:40:35 +0000

Did you ever have that? That feeling you want and need to write an article, but you simply can’t find the energy, inspiration or subject for that post.

It’s very irritating to you and your readers, because they think you don’t want or can’t find the time to write an article, but you have the time! You want to write that great article, but you simply can’t find the inspiration to write that killer article.

Could you prepare for this problem? Or is there any solution available to get your groove back? There is not one solution, because people are reacting different to things, so here are a couple tips I have thought of that could help you.

Take enough rest - When you sleep well and you can concentrate on the work you have to do, you are less likely to get that writers block. With enough rest, you can focus on the job.
Writing schedules - Writing schedules might keep you out of trouble, because you are used to the time you have to write. You’ve built a writing discipline.
Take some time off - It isn’t very good to do another project right after you’ve finished something. You have to take some time off and switch your mind from focussed to relaxed.
Writing is a job - Many people (including me) love to write. It’s their passion and they don’t see it like work. But you should because if you see writing as work, articles are things you have to do as part of the job-description and you will do it with more ease because it is a must.
More projects - Some people like to work on different projects at once. They can switch their focus and that prevent them from getting bored with the projects. As a result, they will enjoy their work more.
Easy things - In a project or blog you always have tasks to do that are more easy then others. When you feel like you get a writers block coming up, you could drop that 10 page thick article for a while and start writing something that’s more light and fresh.
Unplug your internet - Disconnecting from the internet might help you to concentrate on the things you are doing. You can’t get distracted by your interesting IM friends or by Emails and that helps you focus on things you have to finish.
Take a shower - I usually take a shower when I just find myself looking at a text I just can’t finish without some inspiration. It just makes me and my head fresh and the inspiration comes back.
Write down posting ideas - When I am away from the computer, I usually know where to write about and I find the best subjects. But when I get behind that document those ideas are usually flying somewhere around my head and I can’t seems to remember them. Write ‘em down in a ‘idea-post’, or in your mobile phone as a memo. You will find yourself a great subject if you look at your ideas later on.

The conclusion

After those tips, we should never have to have a writers block again. But you all know how difficult it is to write quality articles all the time. These tips work for some people, but not everyone could benefit from everything what I have written down today. I hope a couple of you do though.

You should remember that we all have to struggle with this problem sooner of later and we will always get over it! It is a matter of time.

Just keep writing.

Interesting Articles #10

Stefan Vervoort — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:13:25 +0000

Here is the post number 10 in the Interesting Articles series! If you count all the interesting articles I ordered with special care for you, you are around 50 now! Enjoy the fresh ones.

1. 8 easy plugins to install to SEO your WordPress - I haven’t featured anything that Joost de Valk wrote just yet so I will do two in a row today. This article is a guest post for WDL and it helped me out a lot. He also wrote this close-to-complete Wordpress SEO article and that preserves a bookmark!

2. 5 Steps for the Perfect Tabbed Navigation Menu - A new usability blog we should be watching in the future because this article is great. Five tips that might help you making your Navigation menus better.

3. On Domain Names, Size and Quality DOES Matter! - In this article gives you some extensive information about Domain names. Things you didn’t think of or didn’t had time for to find out. This articles needs a bookmark for future reference.

4. Don’t Read This If You Do Not Want More Email - Why did we always use only 1 contact form on our whole website when this article proves us you get more emails when you use more forms on different pages?

5. Phizz.biz - Need any outstanding grunge design inspiration? Don’t look any further because this layout is tha real excellent shit!

If you have any articles that I should feature in the future? Hit the Contact

Remove The Dotted Outline On Links

Stefan Vervoort — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:03:46 +0000

There are so many things possible when we talk about links and CSS. You could change almost everything you want and all around the internet we see different link styles we have never seen before. That is the greatness of CSS and the creativity of people.

Today we will discuss the use of a dotted outline on links, because one little improvement will do loads of good to the cleanness of your links. We want to delete that outline.

Dotted Outline

You still don’t know what I mean with that outline thing? Take a look below for an example from this blog. You could also check it for yourself by clicking on any link on this blog and you will see the outline appear.

I thought this outline thing had a difficult solution as I thought the outline was build in by browsers to apply to the links. So it was a standard that couldn’t turned turned off. But it has a solution.

The Solution

Fortunately, we have Google as our friend and I did some searching. The first keywords, the first result was the page I was looking for. There is the solution and it was much easier then I expected: it’s just plain CSS!

CSS

a{ outline:0; }

This trick removes the outline from any link, but that is not the best solution. Some people go through all links via the “tab” key and if you apply this trick, the outline is deleted on that “tabbed-links” as well, with the result that users don’t know where they are navigating.

That’s why there is another solution, a somewhat more user friendly one. The outline usually only appears when you click on the link and that is called making the link active. The active state of the link can be styled:

CSS

a:active{ outline:0; }

Conclusion

The solution is now user friendly, accessible and good-looking! As we all know, things like this aren’t required for a great blog or website, but all those little things help you making your website that small bit better to view and use.

The Importance Of Analyzing Your Statistics

Stefan Vervoort — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:25:01 +0000

It is a fact that bloggers who just starting out like statistics. They tend to check their numbers every five minutes of a day. Is that productive? Is that the right thing to do?

A starting blogger and stats

In the beginning of a blog, the blogger likes every visitor that took the time to visit the blog. Therefore every time you visit your stats you will have a great feeling and that is awesome, but, but you should not forget: checking your statistics will not get you any more visitors!

We will do a little math. Let’s say you check you statistics 5 times a day for 5 minutes. That is 25 minutes a day, 125 minutes a week and 500 minutes a month. 500 minutes is 8 1/3 hour a month! You can write yourself many quality articles in that time, and that will increase your visitor base!

So why the article title?

It is simple. As soon as you are receiving some traffic it is from great importance to analyze your statistics. That’s something else then just looking to some numbers. For example, with a great statistics program like Google Analytics you will be able to learn almost anything about your visitors, with the result you can optimize your blog with your findings!

The importance lies in the knowledge you gain from the stats about what visitors do on your blog. You will know where they are coming from, what the keywords were they’ve entered and found your blog through and you’ll know how they are navigating through your site. I guess you are interested in that.

What is important in statistics analyzing?

In this example I will use Google Analytics, because that is the program I use myself to analyze DivitoDesign’s statistics. Of course, if you look for the same pointers in other stats program, it will work via the same principle.

Important Pointers

In your program, look for the following points. These can help you to improve your blog:

Referrer logs - People who visit your blog usually come from websites that link to your site or link to some articles you have written. If you know where these people come from, you know which sources work for your blog. You can use that to promote articles in the future.In Google Analytics: Traffic Sources > Referring Sites
Search engine traffic - Get to know on which keywords your visitors get on your site. Try to optimize those pages some more and try to get higher in the listings, because it might become your most important traffic source.In Google Analytics: Traffic Sources > Search Engines
New vs Returning - Very important in the long run. Do you have many people just coming for one time, or will many of those visitors return some day to check for news? This point is important if you want to build a community around your blog (which I think is the most important thing in blogging). In Google Analytics: Visitors > New vs Returning
Bounce rate - Bounce rate is important as it tells you the percentage of people who view only 1 page of your blog. If your bounce rate is very high, you need to optimize your layout, you need to give visitors more reasons to stay on your blog (to let them navigate easy, related articles, popular articles. Learn more).In Google Analytics: Visitors > Visitor trending > Bounce Rate
Browsers - If you check this part of the stats program once in a while you get to know what your visitor base is browsing with. If you see some new browsers pop on that list, you have to try your website in that browser and see if it displays properly.In Google Analytics: Visitors >Browser Capabilities > Browsers

What about you?

Do you analyze your statistics? What are you looking for when you analyze? Or do you think it doesn’t really matter where your visitors come from? Please comment to tell me what you think and vote on the poll in the sidebar. I am very interested in your opinion regarding this subject!

Fonts on the internet: What are our options?

Stefan Vervoort — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:58:44 +0000

Let’s have some typography talk now. We will talk about the fonts you could use on the internet. Fonts that are safe to use in your website to produce a quality layout with the fitting typography choices.

Why safe?

I realize myself almost every day there are so many awesome fonts out there. A couple weeks back I looked at a post over at Noupe that featured some great fonts from deviantART. Lovely, those fonts. I want to use them, but I simply can’t, because it doesn’t show on every computer. Why? Because not every visitor has that font installed on their computer.

What can we do about it? Nothing. It’s the same problem we have with Internet Explorer 6, it just doesn’t leave the scene, because there are still too many people who use it. We just can’t say, “All computer users, install this disk with free fonts”. Even if we did that, not everyone will install the fonts, and the problem isn’t solved.

So, we have a problem. Where the solution? We always have those people that started to look for some inventive solutions. They found them, take a look below for at a couple of ‘em.

Web Safe Fonts

To give your paragraphs, headings and titles a somewhat special look even with normal fonts, we have to improvise with the possibilities that are available (take a look around, we all have to deal with the problem): fonts that are installed by default on most (if not all) operating systems and therefore we have the best chance these fonts work.

Dustin Brewer has done some great researching work when he wrote this post. Fortunately for us, we now have a complete list (or almost!) of the fonts we could use on the internet, without fearing some people don’t see our content.

sIFR

In the past, I have wrote a tutorial about this technique (it’s aged now). sIFR is a combination of Flash, HTML, CSS and Javascript and I know, that sounds hard. But really, it is not that bad.

Recently, sIFR has released a great new version, called sIFR 3.0 and it has gone a long way since its first release. It has features like text-resizing, turning sIFR on/off and printing solutions. Take a look on the site for more features.

This is an awesome solution to our little problem, at least for headings or titles.

Image Replacement

Another way to include some sexy fonts in your website is by using images. You know, those images you designed in Photoshop with a special font and replaced with the original, standard looking heading. But, what if you run a blog, should you be designing a image for every post you write?

Of course not, we have inventive people with us on the web. There are plenty of software packages around that show you how to use image replacement on a user friendly and accessible way.

FLIR is the one I recently read about, and I think we will hear loads of this technique in the future. Oh yeah, here is a tutorial to learn how to install and use FLIR on your website.

Any More?

I am sure there are more tips and tricks available but usually those aren’t the best. Maybe they have problems with accessibility or it’s not compatible on every computer. If I have forgotten your personal favorite or an absolute awesome kit, comment and I will add it to the list.

Cheers.

Woow. Work is making blogging hard

Stefan Vervoort — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:54:27 +0000

Man, that is hard. The last two days (and the following three), I have been working. I really don’t mind and I even like it.

The only thing I mind about working is the fact this blog doesn’t get the updates it deserves and got a couple weeks back. I was posting one or two quality posts a day and I wanted to keep that ritual going. But, I am sorry, but it is at the moment, too hard to keep up. I simply just doesn’t have the energy and inspiration to start writing an in-depth article.

When I read the interview with Jeffro for the first time, I was confused about the amount of work he could produce. That guy is making around 20 hours a day and he is still able to catch up with the flow!

I want that too. I want to devote a lot to blog and the visitors. I want to produce quality Wordpress themes. I want to produce articles that face the frontpage of Digg. I want to become a blogger that is able to make a living out of his adventure.

It is always hard when you are not a full time blogger unable to make a living from your blog and you are pushing things around to earn your 7euro per hour rate. Because you have to work, you can’t grow your blog. I don’t like the circle we are getting into.

Simple said, hard days for me.

I do the best I can people.

An interview with Jeffro from Jeffro2pt0.com!

Stefan Vervoort — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:35:14 +0000

Yeah! For the first time in my life, I had the chance to interview someone! It is also the first interview here on DivitoDesign and I am sure many will follow in the future.

After reading the answers this guy gave to the questions, I started to look from another side to him. I learned about how blogging is done when you are full-time employed and you are blogging beside that. It is important for you as readers as well!

The introduction

Therefore, I would like to introduce you to Jeffro! His real name is Jeff Chandler and he is the writer and owner of the blog jeffro2pt0.com. Recently, he decided to jump in a exciting job: Writing for performancing.com and he was (unfortunately it stopped..) also the host of the WP-weekly podcasts. Enough things to talk about! He is also showing his online adventures on his new personal blog, jeffc.ME.

The Interview

1. Hey Jeff! Thanks for taking the time to do a little interview with me! How are you today?

First off, thanks for making me feel special by asking me for an interview. Secondly, I’m doing pretty well.

2. A position at performancing.com opened up some time back and you jumped in. How is life treating you there? Are you enjoying the new experience and challenge?

Well, so far so good. The job at Performancing has helped me pay the bills. What is great about this opportunity is that I am writing for a site that my pal, James Mowery is also writing for. I admire his writing ability and his work ethic. Together with the rest of the writers of Performancing, I fee like we are slowly but surely bringing Performancing back to the pillar of excellence it once was.

As for the challenges that Performancing brings, it was extremely tough for me for the first few weeks as I didn’t know what to write about, how to write it, etc. The problem lies in knowing the audience. Now that I am in my third month writing for Performancing, I’ve begun to feel more confident in my writing and which topics I should be writing about.

3. How do you manage to combine blogging with your daily routine? Do you have writing schedules or something like that?

To be completely honest, I live within the realm of chaos theory. There is no rhyme or reason to my workflow. Here is what a typical day in the life of Jeff Chandler is like.

Wake up between 1-3 P.M. EST. Most times, it’s around 3 P.M.

Do my morning routine, take out the trash, take care of personal matters and get on the PC within an hour of waking up.

Check email and respond if necessary.

Check Performancing.com for new comments.

Check the HIVE for new posts.

Log onto Twhirl to see whats shaking in the Twittersphere.

Get on Skype and AIM

Think of ideas to write about. I might open up my FeedReader to see 1 billion unread items. I’ll browse through the headlines or articles to see if any resonate with me in which I can write about. If not, I’ll read a chapter or two of a book and try to generate a post idea from that.

I do all this and before you know it, 6 P.M. Comes around and this is when I make dinner. From 7-8 P.M. I relax and play a game before work. 8-8:30 P.M. I get ready for work. At 9 P.M. I go to work. I don’t get off of work until 5 A.M. When I get home, I fire up the PC, check emails and if I feel up to it, I write a post or two. I try to get to bed before 6 but it never works. Recently, I’ve been getting to bed by about 7 A.M.

Really though, I have no idea how I do this. I am looking at finding some way to schedule my life by the hour. There are too many times when I sit in front of the PC, ready to be productive but because there are so many things to do, I end up not doing any of them thus leading to nothing getting done.

So to sum up your question, I have no writing schedules, no routine, no rhyme or reason on how I get things done. I just trudge my way through each day, trying to get something done. I think I need an overdose of Lifehacker!

4. You run Jeffro2pt0.com and you recently launched a personal site/blog, JeffC.me. What are your goals for those two blogs in the next year?

Well, for Jeffro2pt0.com, I want to get my groove back. I really had a good thing going during my first year of blogging on that domain. Unfortunately, I lost my focus, changed topics and didn’t keep pace. The momentum on the site dropped and I am now in the position to try and get that momentum back. I also want to turn it into more of a serious venture. This meant that I had to establish a separate blog which housed my personal stuff while Jeffro2pt0.com was more of a serious thing.

My goal for Jeffro2pt0.com is to re-establish the community atmosphere I once had. I also want to see if I can’t make a few bucks by dabbling with monetization via 125X125 ads. As for my personal site, I have no goals set. JeffC.me will serve as a portal for everything I do on the net. Jeffc.me/blog will be my personal blog completely seperate from Jeffro2pt0.

5. I guess Jeffro2pt0.com brings in some of the traffic to your personal site. Do you use other methods to promote JeffC.me?

Actually, Jeffc.me has been around for less than a month. The .ME domain extension is brand new and has only recently been available to the public. Right now, I have yet to do cross promotion between all three domains. I plan on doing some cross promotion at some point in the future via a simple text link. As far as promoting Jeffc.me, it is still not in a position to be promoted as I’m still working out some kinks. However, once it is finished, I’ll be pointing people to that site to see what it is I’m doing on the web.

6. Do you know a blogger who you would like to invite for an interview by DivitoDesign?

I would love to see you interview James Mowery, also a writer for Performancing.com.

I will contact him soon!

I would like to thank Jeff to schedule an interview with DivitoDesign in his busy life. Best of luck in the future my friend, and if you need a favor in the future, just shout!